Blogging Challenge: Superpowers!

Prompt: What is my superpower?

I feel like we've done this challenge before, and I suspect I mentioned that I've never broken a bone (and listen up, O ye Gods and Goddesses, that was not a challenge!) but that I felt like my real superpower was explaining technical computer stuff in ordinary-person English. I might have mentioned that troubleshooting technology could also qualify. 

All of which is still valid!

I was trying to think of whether there's anything else I'd add to that, but what I'm coming up with is, well... 

Writing. 

Okay, but writing as a superpower? Well might you ask. 

Yes. Writing as a superpower. Writing as an act of active imagination, writing as a way of using that imagination to keep myself sane here in the collapse of the Republic in 2025, writing as a way of thinking -- and working -- through my issues, maybe even writing as a way of helping other people. It's fucking magic, my friends, undervalued and under-appreciated though it often is. 

Writing is a superpower.  

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)    

Challenge: Not Feeling Well

Prompt: What I read when I'm not feeling well

Comfort reads! The short, easy answer is that I tend to go back and re-read books that I enjoyed previously. (Or, alternatively, play video games that fall into the same general category.) 

That includes some stand-alones: 

• Martha Wells, Wheel of the Infinite
• Martha Wells, City of Bones
• Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
• Jennifer Crusie, Welcome to Temptation
• Jennifer Crusie, Faking It
• Jennifer Crusie, Bet Me

It also includes some series: 

• Roger Zelazny, Chronicles of Amber
• Barbara Hambly, the Darwath Cycle
• Robert E Howard, various Conan short stories
• Martha Wells, The Books of the Raksura

And, as I mentioned, a couple of video games that occupy a similarly comfortable/comforting niche for me: 

• Infamous and Infamous 2
• Infamous Second Son
• Soul Reaver (and various associated)
• Star Wars: Battlefront (the PS2 version, not the newer one)

There are a few others that I might jump back to if I were feeling poorly and the mood took me, but these are my go-to list.  

* * * 

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)   

Challenge: Favorite Quotes

Prompt: My Favorite Quotes From Books

Oh, so many... Okay, let's start with this one: 

"Life's incessant ceremonies leap everlasting, humans spring eternal on hope's breast, and frying pans without fires are often far between." 
~Roger Zelazny, The Sign of the Unicorn

* * * 

 "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. But what the Hell, it's home." 
~Roger Zelazny, Shadow Knight (I think. I can't find this one online, and I'm not up to digging through the full five volumes of the Merlin chronicles.)

* * * 

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.      
~Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

* * * 

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)   

Challenge: Cover Art

Prompt: Favorite Book Covers and Why

I'm going to have to go with David Mattingly, and particularly the art he did for a bunch of Barbara Hambly's books, notably including the Darwatch series. Why? Well, that's easy: they were on the front of some of my favorite books. Are they a bit dated these days? Well, yes, but they're still fun to look at. 

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)   

Challenge: Needs a Sequal

Prompt: Books that need a sequel

I really had to think about this one, but I did come up with an answer.

I don't know that it needs a sequel -- it does fine as a stand-alone -- but I'd love to read a sequel, or even a follow-up Novella, to Martha Wells' fantasy book Wheel of the Infinite. The story features an older woman, the priestess Maskelle, as the protagonist, though the occasional bits from the perspective of the foreign swordsman Rian are are also delightful, and... it's not that I need continuation or closure, it's just that I'd like to revisit those characters again. 

The one that does really need a sequel, though, is Lilith Saintcrow's Coyote Run. It's pure fun: fast-paced, fascist-punching, shape-shifting action. I want more stories about punching fascists!

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.) 

Challenge: Books to movies/TV

Prompt: Books I Love That Became Films or TV shows

The obvious go-to for me here is Murderbot, which will be available for viewing any day now. That said, and while I haven't managed to watch any of it, I was delighted to see the Wheel of Time books become a TV show -- and one that apparently doesn't suck. 

What I'd really like to see, though, is two other series. So, y'know, if anybody's listening out there who happens to make TV shows, I would love to see: 

• The Books of the Raksura -- a long-lost consort finds his way back to the matriarchal society of dragon-ish shapechangers that gave birth to him and has to adjust to suddenly having a home with them -- a home that comes with conflicts, privileges, and social expectations that he is entirely unprepared to deal with. 
• Banon and Claire -- high sorcery and inventive genius in the industrial revolution of an alternate London, with just the most amazing worldbuilding -- which would be so fun to put on screen. Plus, Lilith Saintcrow really deserves a chance to write the next trilogy in this series. Seriously, put the first three in a TV series and I guarantee that she'll write the next three. 

Make these shows, I am begging you.

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Challenge: Books to Discover

Prompt: Books I want youth to discover

Um. Good Lord. So, so many books. Where to even start? 

All right, let me just pick a couple of authors. 

Barbara Hambly: 

• Darwath series. Portal fantasy; H.P. Lovecraft meets J.R.R. Tolkien. Some elements are a little bit dated, but generally not problematic, and it pulls off some moments that I swear to God only a History major with a martial arts background writing fantasy could have produced. 
• Stranger at the Wedding. A spinoff from her Windrose Chronicles, this is the standalone story of a young mage trying to save her sister from a death curse. 
• James Asher Novels. Vampires in Victorian-ish London recruit a former-spy-turned-college-professor to find out who's killing them. The series proceeds from there. 

Martha Wells:
Look, I know Murderbot gets all the attention and I have no problem with that, but her backlist is equally amazing:

• The Ile-Rein books. Beginning with a sort of Three Musketeers but with magic (The Element of Fire) to a gaslight London murder mystery (Death of the Necromancer) to a trilogy of London Being Bombed in WWII (Fall of Ile-Rein, starting with The Wizard Hunters) and featuring portal fantasy elements. The Death of the Necromancer is particularly amazing, but the whole series is good.
• City of Bones.  A pair of hunters for relics of the ancient world are recruited by psychically-empowered Lictors to help solve an ancient mystery that should never have been investigated. Standalone. 
• The Books of the Raksura. Sword and Sorcery, except informed by the Nature Channel rather than the History Channel. Come watch a lost Consort find his place among a matriarchal society of dragon-like shapeshifters. 

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

Challenge: Books from Social Media

Prompt: Books I Discovered On Social Media

So, so many books. I don't even know where to start on this one, and honestly I'm not sure how well I can distinguish the ones I heard about on Social Media from the ones I might have found through other channels. But I'd guess that easily half and probably as much as three-quarters of the books I buy are one I first heard about on social media.

Looking through recent purchases or pre-orders... Let's see...

The Never List, Jade Presley. The four princes of Lumathyst need a mate, and everyone wants a chance...except for her.

The Fealty of Monsters, Volume One, Ladz. Winter 1917. After years on the run from a dangerous cult, twenty-three-year-old Sasza and his father have established themselves among the Odonic Empire’s ruling class. But there’s a problem: Sasza is a vampire, and vampires aren’t supposed to get involved in human governance

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, Sarah Wynn-Williams. Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.”

Twice as Dead, Harry Turtledove. Rudolf Sebestyen is missing, and Marianne Smalls is involved in an illicit affair with the shady Jonas Schmitt. Both cases converge when Dora Urban, Rudolf’s beautiful and mysterious half-sister, and Lamont Smalls, Marianne’s suspicious husband, hire Jack Mitchell, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking private investigator. Dora wants Jack to uncover what happened to her brother, while Lamont seeks proof of his wife’s infidelity. But Dora is a vampire, in a city teeming with creatures of the night.

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)

 

Challenge: Characters to Avoid

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Characters I never want to meet...

I mean, let's just start with Hannibal Lecter. I don't think I'd be a likely victim of his -- don't fit the profile -- but who really wants to find that out? I like my liver right where it is. 

I'll just follow that one up with the Witch-king of Angmar. I'm both mortal and man, so I have exactly zero chance of killing him, and unless maybe we've negotiated a nice, fawning interview for Middle Earth News Network there's a pretty decent chance that he kills me very thoroughly, probably without even really noticing. 

Freddy Krueger might find me to be surprisingly difficult prey; I've always had interestingly narrative dreams, and frequently with pretty decent control over the direction of events. But, again, why would I want to risk it? Pass. 

Brooke Augustine is one of the most viciously cruel villains ever written; as a non-super-powered civilian, I wouldn't ever want to come to her attention, let alone meet her in person. Keep her and the D.U.P. far, far away from me.

Challenge: Comfort Food

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Favorite Comfort Food and Why (+Recipes)

Oh, this'll be an interesting topic. I'm probably not the best person to ask, since one of my qualifications for a proper comfort food is that it has to be relatively easy to prepare, but I do have some answers for this prompt. So buckle in, and let's explore the wonders of...

1. Bacon. Literally just a plate of bacon. Drink a lot of water with this one, or maybe 3/4 water + 1/4 orange juice (arguably a comfort food in its own right).  I don't believe bacon requires a lot of explanation, but:

Recipe: Buy 4-8 packets of uncooked bacon. Put tinfoil over your baking trays, then lay bacon down in strips on the trays. Push the dog out from underfoot. Set the oven to 350 or 375 F. (The higher setting is a little faster, but also a little easier to burn things.) Cook until done -- usually about 20 minutes. Shove the dog out of the way again so you can open the oven. Remove trays and use tongs to move bacon to a paper plate covered with three-deep paper towels. Put a cover of two more paper towels on top, and set well back from the edge of the counters so the dog can't get at it. Reload tray with more bacon and reinsert, then nudge the dog aside and unload the next tray. Continue process until all your uncooked bacon has been converted into nicely-cooked bacon. 

Notes: Don't try to eat all the bacon at once. Have a bit and freeze the rest; you may need access to comfort food for longer than you realize. Also, you can then use it for:

2. Mac & Cheese & Bacon. So, now you've got this nice supply of frozen bacon just waiting for you to have an emotional/gastronomical breakdown. But, well, this time you need something a little different, with more carbs. Instant Mac & Cheese is here to help, but it's better with some of that bacon in it. Plus, the dog is less likely to take an ankle-adhering interest in what you're cooking.

Recipe: Find some Mac and Cheese -- I recommend one of the Cracker Barrel Instant Mac & Cheese boxes, if you can find one; it's a better flavor for this than the regular Kraft stuff, and cooks in minutes -- and cook it. Then crumble a few strips of bacon and mix it in. Stir it around, and enjoy. 

Notes: Adjust the Mac & Cheese vs. Bacon ratio as desired.

3. Instant Ramen. It's quick, it's tasty, it can be prepared as a soup or just as some noodles, and if you want to clear your sinuses you can either buy spicy or mix some hot sauce in. Plus, once again, it can be prepared with almost no time and effort. 

Recipe: Boil water, insert noodles, poke and stir until noodles soften. For soup, add the flavor packet and possibly some hot sauce directly to the water. For noodles, drain the water and then add the sauce packet, stirring until the flavor is evenly distributed. Easy Peasy.

Notes: Dog is unlikely to find this interesting at all, which can be a blessing some days. 

4. Long John Silver's. It's fast food incarnate: deep-fried and heavily battered whitefish, with french fries. Maybe some catsup and tartar sauce. There's no deep meaning here. It's hot, it's greasy, it's good. Plus, they won't let you bring the dog inside, so that's one less thing to worry about. 

Recipe: Drive to the nearest Long John Silver's and pay for somebody else to cook your meal. 

Notes: Be sure to ask for extra crumbs. You can apologize to your circulatory system later.

So there you go. What're your favorite comfort foods? (I'm looking forward to seeing what everybody else comes up with for this one.)

Challenge: Favorite Hobby

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Your Favorite Hobby And Why

It's writing. You knew it was going to be writing. Of course it's writing. 

I do it constantly. I do it to entertain myself, I do it entertain other people, I do it to explore and organize my thoughts and feelings, I do it because it's cheaper than therapy. Even when the boys were young and I could barely find two minutes to rub together for myself, I was still writing. Even when I'd given up martial arts, climbing, game nights, and everything else, I was writing. 

I do still enjoy climbing; the combination of physical effort, coordination, and just, well, being way up high really works for me. (I am, however, here to tell you that it is not as easy as it used to be!) 

I miss doing martial arts, and the various sorts of swordfighting I used to do (fencing, SCA, etc.) I may even get back to them at some point; we'll have to see.

But writing? Writing has been part of my life since I was about twelve, and I don't see it going away.

 

Challenge: Fictional Worlds

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Fictional Worlds I'd Rather Not Visit

I mean, that's a lot of them. Most of Stephen King's oeuvre, for example. A pretty fair chunk of Clive Barker, too. But if I had to pick one in particular, I'd have to go with Athas.

Athas is the homeworld for the Dungeons and Dragons Dark Sun campaign setting. It's a post-apocalyptic desert world -- sort of like Mad Max, but without the car chases and gun fights, and with elves and dragon-folk and insect people instead. Resources -- notably water and metal of any sort -- are scarce. Unlike most D&D settings, Athas is closed off from other planes of existence, so if I somehow wound up there, there would be no going back. 

And unless I was extremely fortunate, I'd last maybe a day or two before being robbed, sold into slavery, or murdered. If I was unlucky, well... it take a bit of time to die of dehydration, heatstroke, and hypothermia in the desert. 

So yeah, I would very prefer not to be isekai'ed to Athas.

Challenge: Memorable Acquaintance

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: A story about a memorable acquaintance

Heh. All right. 

This is back in college, when I was sharing a dorm room with a young man whom I'll refer to as J. J was a computer science major, extremely bright, and exactly my kind of odd. He loved playing with ideas, particularly about obscure esoterica: the illuminati, the idea that somewhere there was a list of all the really smart people on the planet, what if there really was a hollow earth, and like that. He didn't really believe in any of it, but the absurdity of it all appealed to him. And, of course, he was the destined savior of the human race. 

We all just pretty much took that last one in stride. He'd mention it every now and again, but it wasn't a regular topic of conversation or something he really insisted on. 

Anyway, the two of us were up very late one night, discussing the gods alone know what. Probably something vague and philosophical, possibly related to religion. I genuinely don't remember at this point. 

What I do remember is the very end of the conversation. I was already up in the top bunk, and he was sitting on the bottom bunk, and it was time to go to sleep. So he got up, crossed the room to the light switch (which was beside the door), and concluded whatever point he was making with, "After all, I'm the destined savior of the human race." He flipped the light off, then added: "Funny thing is, sometimes I actually believe that."

Then he crossed the room again (in the dark), tossed himself down onto his mattress, and missed by a good two feet, thus crashing into the floor instead. No harm done, but the timing could not have been any more perfect.

Challenge: Book Quotes

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I kind of fell off last year, so we'll see how I do with it this year.)

Prompt: Book quotes that make me think

 I mean, that's going to be Terry Pratchett for me. Consider, for example, the Boots Theory from Men At Arms: 

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness.

 Or the discussion of justice and belief in Hogfather: 

“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."

REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.

"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"

YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.

"So we can believe the big ones?"

YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.

"They're not the same at all!"

YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.

"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"

MY POINT EXACTLY.”

Weekly Challenge: Humor

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Kind of.)

Prompt: Describe your sense of humor

Addams Family meets Dad Jokes? I'm tempted to say, "I don't know, I only just recently got it back!" Which is actually more true than I'd really like to admit; turns out I should have moved to a new job years ago. Eh, live and learn, I guess. So all right, some examples: 

Example One

Me: "Well, the prerequisites installed just fine. The upgrade, however, did not."

Co-worker: "Why does it always have to be so difficult?"

Me: "Impiety."

Co-worker: "That is... not a word I hear very often." 

Me: "I mean, Herakles had his labors; Prometheus had -- or often lacked -- his liver; and I must therefore assume that I, too, have offended the gods. Probably by being better looking than them. Zeus gets real prickly about that sort of thing."

Example Two

Email to my boss about the same upgrade: "Well, I still can't get it to run. I shall now curse the gods for this unkindness and go to sleep. I'll try it again in the morning after food and some kind of pagan sacrifice."

Example Three 

There are small plastic skeletons in the breakroom. Just a few of them. One's on top of the fridge, one's inside a cabinet, another is on a windowsill, another standing on the top edge of the blackboard. There will be more of them, and in more areas, as we approach Halloween; I have bags of the things. Under no circumstances will I admit to being the one putting them in place. 

On a related note, there is a sign on our fence that says, "Caution: Velociraptor Enclosure. Licensed Handlers Only."

Bad Puns and Dad Jokes

If I fix myself myself a waffle and eat it in secret, would you consider that action syrup-titious?

If I were to fire up the old gene sequencer and cross a homing pigeon with a piranha, do you suppose it would come back to bite me?

Wednesday Challenge: Talk more, people!

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Things I wish more people talked about openly

I mean... I mean... Swords. Dungeons and Dragons. Obscure boardgames. Horror movies. Any of my hobbies, really. Axolotls. 

But also, if we're being more serious, I also wish more people would talk about basic medical stuff. The sheer number of men I've known who apparently go their whole lives without really understanding how menstruation works, the sheer number of people I've known who apparently survive without having any idea how nutrition works, the sheer number of people who apparently don't realize how many medical and adjacent concepts (BMI, IQ, your brain not being fully developed until age 25) are actually just bullshit...

On a related note, Wikipedia's list of common misconceptions is an absolutely fascinating read, and there are plenty of things on there that I'd love to hear people discussing more often. 

And since I'm apparently posting a song for each day of the week, here's one for Wednesday:

Challenge: Haunted House

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Would I stay in a Haunted House? Why or Why Not?

I would. It's not something I would seek out, but I absolutely, 100% would. About the only reason I wouldn't stay in a haunted house is if I had some reason to believe that an actual, living human being was planning to murder me there. That would probably put me off. 

So yeah, if I needed a place to stay and something was the best available choice except that it was supposed to be haunted, I'd settle in. No problem. If someone offered me a cash reward to camp out overnight in an abandoned sanitarium, I'd probably sign up. I'd take precautions against possible intrusions by living humans, but I wouldn't be worried about the ghosts. (In fact, if you watch a random selection of Urbex -- Urban Exploration -- videos on YouTube, you'll run into several where somebody exploring an "abandoned" building found that it was haunted by people who actually lived there and weren't too keen on random tresspassers with cameras. It's a whole thing.) 

Now for the second half of the prompt. Why? Well, mainly because I exist in this weird liminal space between I don't believe ghosts exist and even if they somehow do, they don't actually seem to be that much of a danger or we'd know more about it by now. After the Victorian Spiritualism craze and decades of ghost-hunters, there'd be some kind of overarching hypothesis, some quanitified collection of events and measurements. But mostly I come back to If ghosts were really a thing, we'd know a lot more about them by now. Like, you want to convince me that they're mysterious and hard to gather data about? Okay, but we know about things that are absolutely wild in terms of being hard to study. We know about the bacteria that live around the edges of volcanic vents so deep in the ocean that there's neither light nor oxygen to speak of. We've found ways to study particles that are incomprehensibly small and even some that only exist in momentary bursts. If ghosts were a real-world phenomenon, surely by now we'd at least be comparing data over competing theories of how they worked.

Challenge: Skills

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

This week's prompt is actually my thoughts on social media which right now I do not have. However, I did finally come up with an answer for last week's prompt. A week late, but here it is: 

Prompt: A Skill I Wish More People Had, And Why

I wish more people were skilled at taking no for an answer. 

Yes, sometimes more discussion is needed. Sometimes arguing back is appropriate. But I feel like the world would generally be a better if place if more people practiced answering, "Okay," when they got told "no".

Also I wish people were better at time management. And yes, I am looking directly at the fact that I'm answering last week's prompt right now.

Challenge: Childhood Misunderstandings

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Things I totally misunderstood as a kid...

I grew up with a large-ish wooden chest in my room. It sat under the window, and we kept stuffed animals, sheets and blankets, and toys in it at various points. It had a lovely little cushion on top, and it was very solid and a good height for sitting on. So, naturally, we called it the seater chest, 'cause it served as a seat. 

Seater chest. For years, I genuinely thought that thing was a type of furniture known as a seater chest, in the same general way way that a small, two-person couch is a love seat. Made perfectly good sense. 

It wasn't until I was sixteen and getting ready to leave home, and we were rearranging the room, that I discovered it was called a seater chest because it was...

...made...

...of...

...cedar. 

It was a cedar chest, made of cedar wood, and my parents had put a cushion over the top for no better reason than that it seemed like a good idea at the time, not because that sort of chest was supposed to be padded for seating. 

I would not have been more surprised if I'd discovered that my mom had been a cephalopod this whole time. Absolutely mind-blowing. I don't think I've ever recovered.

Challenge: In A New Light

(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews. I have not been following along as reliably this year as I did in previous years, but I'm still participating! Mostly.)

Prompt: Characters I see differently now than I used to...

Okay, so hear me out on this one. Back in the eighties, there was a Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. 

The cartoon featured a group of six teenagers who'd been magically transported into a fantasy realm and equipped with legendary magical weapons. Among the ongoing dangers they encountered were Venger -- "The Force of Evil" -- and Tiamat, the five-headed dragon of chaos. Their primary ally, guide, and mentor was the mysterious figure known as Dungeon Master -- the same one who provided them with their weapons. Dungeon Master would offer them advice and guidance, though often in the form of riddles. 

Of the six adventuring teenagers, Hank the Ranger was the most noble and heroic, always ready to face a new challenge and do the right things. Diana the Acrobat, Sheila the Thief, Bobby the Barbarian, and Presto the Magician were generally cooperative and supportive, following Hank's lead and trying to work together to solve problems. Eric the Cavalier was presented as the weak point of the party, the one you weren't supposed to like: a spoiled child, a grumbling complainer, mistrusting Dungeon Master's advice, and frequently advocating for the party to turn aside from their current quest and go do something easier. Basically, he was a horrible brat who still occasionally saved the entire team because his shield could project a force field. 

Yeah, well... I picked up a copy of that old cartoon on DVD a while back, and re-watched about half of it. 

Thing is? Eric was right. Frequently. Consistently. Maybe not always, but he saw right through Dungeon Master's fatherly facade and had no problem with calling him out on the fact that his "help" was frequently misleading in ways that deliberately led the group further into trouble. He was the one who spoke up when the group was about to do something mind-bogglingly stupid. He was presented as a coward -- and that was, to some extent, accurate -- but that was frequently the only sensible response to the situations the group found themselves in. 

And for all that Eric might have been a coward, he was also 100% a hero.